I have been playing mmo games for about 10 year. In rift I have been in guilds called Incognito,XLII,Favouritism and currently Heresy.
The purpose of this guide is to make people realize how many important things there is to track as healer. Im trying to focus on areas where most class or role specific guides don’t touch. It’s not role specific guide but more about the mindset,tracking and how to be prepared. Hopefully it’s great help for new people but also it could offer different point of view for seasoned veterans. ( Also english is not my first language so please do not get bothered by it )

It’s very important your eyes can see all the needed data with one look. So you can make faster decisions with the information you have. Badly made interface makes you look the data longer from your sources or even ignore important pieces of information.
And it leads to longer reaction time or wrong decisions. So what data you want to look as healer?

1a. Target PortraitThis is your most important thing to look. You want to make sure it’s in position where you are looking constantly so you can see what mobs cast and predict the dmg you are getting.

1b. Target of Target portrait (settings–>interface–>combat–>x show target’s target)
– You want to see who the mob is targeting or who has the aggro so you can predict who is taking dmg and how much. Very important for situations where tanks are switching between each other or mob is targeting random player.

1c. Raid Frames Position ( Settings –> interface –> Display –> Use raid Frames for parties)
– You want to make sure your raid frames are easily reachable but also not taking too much space around your character so you can see your surroundings properly.
– Usually people keep tanks in certain groups such as group 1, position your raid groups so that the tank group is nearest group from middle. So you can see it with same look you are looking target and target’s target.

1d. Focus Target
– Normally not so important but it’s good to have around, usually used for special situations where you need to watch two targets same time, whether it is the two bosses or two human targets. You can also see what the focus target is casting aswell.

1e. Enough Space to see your surroundings around your character. I cant stress how important this is aswell. Ideally you want to see all the things mentioned before with ONE look. No eyes wandering around your screen looking the data but it’s equally important not to hide data behind other data.

1f. Casting bar

1g. Temporal ability bar
– Should be big enough to notice but not in middle of screen.

2. Prioritize your buttons.

– as Thumb rule, dont macro healing spells(only do MOUSEOVERS on all needed spells and learn to use them). Most spells are situational and you want to have them on separate buttons to use them effektively. Unfortunately healers will have a lot more buttons than some of the dps specs and it’s your job to prioritze buttons properly so you can act efficiently no matter what the situation is. This can be very overwhelming for new healers.a) The Most used healing spells aka spam buttons should be the buttons you feel the most confident with, no matter if it’s for tank healing or aoe healing.b) Big heals or 6-8s heals you are using very often but not spamming. Should be close to your spam buttons.c) Emergency heals and utility spells such as cleanse should be on buttons which you can reach easily but dont usually hoover over.d) Small heals such as hots should be on buttons you can reach with little bit effort.e) Rest of spells, the spells you are not using often but can be certain situations where they might be useful. All leftover buttons.

3. Learn your spells

– What spells do,how much each heal,how often you can use them and how many target each heal.

4. Learn the boss abilities

– Learn ability names, how much each ability do dmg and on who..how often the abilities come and is there any predictable pattern. You should know by watching the target cast bar how much dmg is going to come so you can prepare yourself for it and choose right spells according to the situation you are in.
Taking notice of these things helps you to predict the future and make your life as healer way easier so you can save big heals when needed or plan when you have to move and prepare the skills for it rdy.

5. Look the dmg.

– Look who is derping the mechanics, predict what kind of dmg he will take in future…and decide fast whether he needs healing immediately or later. Predict also if he is going to take dmg longer.

6. Temporal raid Buffs

– Make sure you time your raid buffs properly and dont overwrite other player buffs. You can use programms to keep track of different debuffs/buffs or you can do like me who is tracking time from chat window messages.(Usually people but warning message for other raiders when they cast such spells, there’s plenty of other guides who focus on how to setup these macros)

7. Mind your dps

– When you feel confident with first categories, start improving your personal dps while you heal, but without sacrifising the quality of your healing. Remember most of the time you do this if healing allows you to do so not vise versa.

8. Tunnel visioning

– Dont ignore the data from other sources while you heal. Keep track of everything with one look.

9. Expect people failing

– your job is to track who is failing and try to save them if they do so. Expect people doing smth wrong…react to it. Never trust other players as healer. Each situation is new situation, there is no pattern. Be rdy to act with mouseovers always. Learn to keep your mouse cursor on top of your raid frames or very close.